African universities are routinely measured by what they lack — funding, infrastructure, research capacity, standing in global rankings.
A group of researchers argues that this deficit framing, rooted in colonial histories in which European educational models displaced and devalued African ways of knowing, obscures work universities already do as agents of social innovation and sustainable development.
Writing for The Conversation, the authors describe research that examined how African universities can promote social innovation — new ideas, practices and collaborations that respond to social needs and contribute to wider societal change.
Their study used the University of Cape Town as a case study, drawing on what they describe as decades of experience researching and practising social innovation for sustainable development in Africa.
The research identified three pathways: social intrapreneurship, social entrepreneurship and social extrapreneurship.
Changing the institution from inside
Intrapreneurship, as the authors define it, means working from within an existing organisation to change the organisation itself — its systems, structures, practices and ways of working — including whatever limits innovation and disconnects the institution from society.
In a university, the authors write, intrapreneurs can be academics, professional staff or students who use their positions and university resources to drive change.
They might redesign teaching so students work on real social problems drawn from their own lives and communities, widen access to university knowledge, expertise, facilities and networks, or change whose knowledge is valued and how the university engages with surrounding communities.
The University of Cape Town’s Centre for Higher Education Development is offered as an example, working to improve students’ access to and success at the university through mentoring and academic advising programmes.
Ventures with social impact
On social entrepreneurship, the authors note that much discussion of university entrepreneurship centres on commercialisation through patents, spin-off companies and businesses built on university research.
Social entrepreneurship, in their account, expands that idea by considering how universities can spawn ventures with social impact too, connecting people, ideas and resources in ways that support new organisations and ventures, some of which explicitly address social and environmental problems.
The University of Cape Town’s Solution Space is analysed as an example, supporting entrepreneurs and new ventures through training, mentoring and access to networks.
The university as convenor
The third pathway, social extrapreneurship, rests on the premise that many complex problems cannot be solved by a university, government, business or civil society organisation acting alone.
Universities can create spaces where these different actors meet, exchange knowledge and develop solutions together, the authors write, making the university a connector and convenor.
Their example is the Social Innovation in Health Initiative, co-founded by the University of Cape Town’s Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which connects researchers, innovators, health practitioners and others to develop and scale solutions to health challenges.
Reinforcement and friction
Looking beyond formal strategies, the researchers examined how individuals and groups at the university were addressing societal problems.
They found the three approaches can reinforce one another: an initiative that starts inside a university can develop into an independent social enterprise, and partnerships with outside organisations can change what happens inside the university.
That is possible, they write, because universities connect students, researchers, communities, governments, businesses and civil society.
They also identified barriers.
Bureaucracy, rigid structures and limited resources can make social innovation hard to sustain, even as such innovation contributes to progress by challenging established norms and practices and prompting academics, students and entrepreneurs to experiment with novel solutions.
The authors are explicit about the limits of their evidence. The University of Cape Town is a relatively well-resourced institution, and many African universities operate under much greater constraints.
More research across different contexts is needed, they write, to understand how these approaches operate under different conditions.
The authors’ recommendations
The findings suggest, in the authors’ view, that African universities aiming to contribute to social innovation and sustainable development should create enabling conditions in which people can experiment with new approaches inside the institution; support innovative ideas that can be transferred to external organisations; and build partnerships that connect the university across sectors and communities.
Implementing these recommendations requires navigating complex social and institutional contexts, the authors add. In South Africa, they write, this entails confronting the persistent legacy of colonialism and apartheid as well as inequalities in access, knowledge production and institutional power.
They caution that universities cannot position themselves simply as outsiders arriving to “solve” society’s problems. Social innovation, they argue, requires reciprocal relationships in which different forms of knowledge are recognised and people develop solutions together.
It also invites a redefinition of “success” in social ventures: every failed social venture, in their account, offers useful insights that can inform teaching and future entrepreneurship.
This, they conclude, changes how the contribution of African universities should be thought about. Their value cannot be captured only through publication counts, graduate numbers or positions in international rankings.
African universities can help societies understand problems, bring together people who see those problems differently, experiment with solutions and develop the people and organisations capable of carrying those solutions forward.
Source: The Conversation
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